The government will expand the electric vehicle ecosystem to support charging infra, and e-buses for public transport networks will be encouraged, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Thursday. 

Sitharaman, in her pre-election Budget, which is technically a vote on account and popularly termed an interim Budget, also said the blending of compressed biogas into compressed natural gas for transport and piped natural gas will be mandatory. 

Biomanufacturing and bio foundry scheme will be launched to provide environment-friendly alternatives for bio-degradable production, she added. 

Sitharaman said India's economic strength has made the country an attractive destination for business and conference tourism. 

She said tourism has tremendous opportunities and promised that the government will take up the development of iconic tourist centres to attract foreign tourists. 

She further added that government will provide viability gap funding for 1 GW offshore wind energy. 

The country has a target of 500 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030. 

She said the viability gap funding will also be provided for harnessing offshore wind energy capacity of 1 GW for achieving net-zero emissions by 2070. 

Over the last two years, the EV sector has been growing by leaps and bounds with 2023 proving to be an important year. The registrations of two-wheeler EVs grew 34 per cent YoY in 2023. While the electric cars accounted for just 1.3 percent of car sales in 2022, that is, 49,800 EVs sold out of 3.8 million passenger vehicles